I want to post two interestIng opinion pieces from the Washington Post. The first one is by columnist Charles Krauthammer, who defends the president's recent trip to Asia as both necessary and appropriate, expensive or not. You can find it here.

The second is a piece by two Democratic strategists, who had worked for the Clinton and Carter administrations, who suggest that, to be successful as a president, Obama should declare that he will not run for President in 2012. I think this is highly unlikely to occur, and might not yield the results that they hope for.

For one thing, who would believe him? As the authors state, he doesn't have a lot of credibility with the right. I woud also argue that, having been less than stringent in adherence to his campaign promises, some might suspect that he would decide to run at a later time if his fortunes improved. Maybe the authors intend this to occur.

Secondly, would it really make him a better president? Would he be able to compromise? Or would it make him more strident. Coming from my admittedly Republican perspective, I don't think he has demonstrated capacity for compromise thus far, despite ample opportunity.

It could work. I'm just doubtful.